“Well, It’s Election Day … Again”: How a Multi-day Memetic Narrative Captured the World’s Collective Anticipation during the 2020 “Election Week Limbo”

Abstract

During the more than three days stretching between the 2020 U.S. election day and when the presidential race was officially “called” for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, a blizzard of memes snowed down across social media. This project analyzes more than 500 of these “election week limbo” memes, created and shared during a prolonged moment of collective political anticipation and anxiety. What emerged in this sample was a spontaneous, collaborative and evolving moment of meme-based storytelling that mirrored a classic five-act storytelling structure. Meme-ers sustained this narrative for most of a week, not simply to generate new, humorous takes on an iconic photo. Rather, they collectively evolved the shared tale of a distinct political moment during an isolating pandemic, capturing the “election limbo” story memetically as moods shifted, plot twists emerged and unlikely heroes came to the forefront, creating a distinctly collaborative, narrative, and evolving meme storytelling experience.